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Talk:ND/Military Organization/@comment-903020-20170611022521
Sticking this here: GM's version of expected equipment by gear quality and troop type: Heavy Infantry: Poor: DR4 or less scale or leather armor, medium shields, cheap hand axes. Sling packs with a little food, no water bottle, cloak for shelter. Basic: DR5-6 cheap iron harness or brigantine, medium shields, hand weapons. Backpacks with food and a water skin, a bedroll, and a cloak. Good: DR7+ cheap iron harness. Large shields and hand weapons or two-handed weapons, possibly some throwing weapons. Backpacks with food and water, bedrolls, cloaks, shelter halves or equivalent. Someone in the element has a magical healing potion. Fine: DR7+ iron harness. Large shields and hand weapons or two-handed weapons, usually balanced. Throwing weapons. Backpacks with good food and water, quality bedrolls, cloaks, shelter halves or equivalent. Everyone in the element has a magical healing potion and maybe another potion. Very Fine: DR7+ fine iron harness (may be fluted, duplex, etc). Fine balanced large shields and fine balanced weapons including throwing weapons. Fine packs, good food, quality bedrolls, etc. Everyone has multiple magical potions. Pikemen and Medium infantry use heavy infantry gear, but at one less level: Good Heavy Infantry gear is Fine Medium Infantry gear, etc. Poor gear medium infantry may not even have armor. Pikemen obviously wield pikes instead of shields and hand weapons. Light Infantry: Poor: No armor. Sandals. A couple of javelins. A pouch. A cloak. Basic: DR 3 cheap helmet and torso armor. Boots. Javelins and a hand weapon. A backpack and water skin. a cloak. Good: DR5 cheap brigantine torso and helmet. Boots. Javelins and a hand weapon, possibly a light bow. Good support gear, possibly including paper and survey training. Fine: DR5 brigantine torso and helmet. Quality boots. Javelins and a hand weapon, possibly a light bow. Good support gear. Paper, pencil, surveying training. Very Fine: DR5 fine brigantine torso and helmet. Fine quality boots. Balanced, fine javelins or short bow, hand weapon. Fine support gear. Leaders have spyglasses. Paper, pencil, surveying training. Bowmen basically use Light Infantry gear, but crossbows and bows in place of javelins and may have two-handed melee weapons (mauls, great axes) that are primarily tools but can be pressed into combat. The difference between them and light infantry isn't the gear, but organization, fighting styles, and purpose: light infantry are scouts and hit-and-run skirmishers that infiltrate through woods; bowmen loose masses of arrows from blocks of troops in fairly close order to break up enemy formations and are willing to smash into the flanks of enemy troops that are caught up in fighting with friendlies. Support and battle mages also use light infantry gear, usually with a bit less DR. They don't carry bows or javelins, but carry more potions (usually paut) and magical gear appropriate to their tradition: holy symbols for priests, wands and staves for wizards. Higher quality gear gives better bonuses (ie, Blessed and High Holy Symbols and the wizardly equivalent). Cavalry is basically the same as infantry, but with horses. Horse quality obviously matters, and style too: horse archers and light cavalry want fast, light coursers with endurance; heavy and medium cavalry want destriers that can carry a load at a reasonable clip but endurance is less. Better quality horses are stronger, faster, and have more endurance. Heavy cavalry armor also has slightly better DR than heavy infantry armor because the horse carries some of the weight. Better quality cavalry also has more remounts: Poor probably doesn't have remounts, good or better probably has an alternate horse for transport and a pool of replacement horses to absorb battlefield losses.